More Than Lust but Less Than Love
by Commodore S. S. Sanders
Summary: The Dark Ace contemplates an arrangement with a certain woman and wonders if they'll ever be able to love outside the bed.
1. Chapter 1

Hot flashes of skin upon slick skin. The feel of her pressed against me in the most intimate of ways. I can feel the fire of her passion as she kisses me, her lips leaving trails of heat equal in intensity to the lightening that renders the skies over Cyclonia. Our bodies wrestle against each other, meld into one another and fall apart to do it all again. I can feel the power play of the ongoing war out in the real world translated through her harsh touches and loving caresses and I'm sure she can feel the same in mine. The dark of the dusty inn's room is filled with our heated cries and the creaking of the bed frame. My armor and sword lie somewhere forgotten in the dimness along with my Talon Elite uniform. For the moment my position as Cyclonis's general and the burdens that come with it lie on the floor with them. If only I could leave all those things on the dingy wooden floor in the morning and leave this place without them.

Our passion burns itself into exhaustion and I'm left awake, her nude form lying next to me. She is asleep, her hair tousled in the motion of our love-making. It's so peaceful now in the dark and quiet, our bodies radiating with the afterglow. Her steady, soft breathing lulls me into a place where my mind wanders.

Maybe, for just one night we could pretend our worlds aren't tearing each other apart? Maybe, for just one night we could lie and call this love? I almost laugh at myself out loud. She is a Sky Knight and I am Cyclonia's champion. I have killed more Knights and have slaughtered hundreds of soldiers… Atmosian soldiers… and she fights to rid the world of my empire. Our worlds will always war until one destroys the other. And this…this could never be love. That was the agreement. Our arrangement was strictly based on fulfilling the baser needs of our hard wired instincts. In the morning, we will dress and leave with hardly a word to each other until the next time we meet. It will be the same then as well; a night of heat and love making only to part in the morn as if nothing happened.

Perhaps even with another woman, I would not be able to find love. Some men are just destined to never settle. The wings of my heart are wide and unclipped and I feel in her the same urge to soar. Maybe this is why I look at her now and wish this was more than just something to satisfy our need. Again, my wishful thinking gets the better of me and I remind myself of my officer's rank. There is no room in this war for love; just this thin facsimile of physical rapture.

I hardly notice as the pre-dawn glow illuminates the small window until the first rays of the morning poke through the old curtains and she stirs next to me. I watch as she sits up and casually dresses, finding her various articles of clothing where they had been frantically tossed several hours before. She looks at me and those green depths capture me unexpectedly. I quickly busy myself with dressing, locking my steel armor into place over the green and orange Vulture of the Cyclonian colors. As I work to assemble the brace over my left arm I catch her looking at me, something in her eyes that I can't quite pinpoint. It's more than lust but not quite love- perhaps something not quite loathing, I'm not sure. Whatever it is, it is beyond the animal like need of the night before.

She catches me looking back at her and quickly looks away, brushing a brilliant lock of purple hair behind her ear. I hardly hear her muttered farewell and I watch her leave, her crystal powered nun-chucks dangling from her belt. I sigh. Perhaps one day this will develop past what it is. Or maybe I'm just kidding myself and it will always be the same.

I hear the sound of the Interceptor's Slip-Wing shift into flight mode and a brilliant red streak is left if her wake. Maybe next time we can pretend that this is love if only just to pretend…


	2. Chapter 2

I can feel his hot breath on my neck as he kisses down my jaw, our bodies locked in a struggle to dominate the other. He grunts as I catch him off guard and flip him onto his back. His red eyes stare up at me for a moment before he pulls me down into another rough kiss. His kisses and touches are harsh and demanding and my body replies in kind, this instinctual need growing in the deepest part of me. The bed frame creaks under our movements and his touches exhilarate a feeling in me more intense than falling from the sky. As I fall, I can feel my burdens fade and become shadows in the gloom. The loss of my squadron, the yoke of revenge and the war become irrelevant. I can even forget about the black soul that resides in the man that now knows me in the most private of ways. If only I could entrap these shadows of my past in the darkness of this cheap inn and seal them away forever.

Here, we can pretend that none of those things matter. Here in the dark, we are not Sky Knight and Cyclonian. We are just two people in need of something to remind ourselves that we are human. In the heat of our love making, we can forget about what we really are and indulge in this sin.

Our bodies reach a breaking point and we are left breathless and sated. I roll over onto my side, away from him and close my eyes. I can feel his heart through his ribs as I lean back against him, a thunderous pulse as strong as a storm. I stare in the direction of the wall that is somewhere out there amid the dark.

I try again to sleep but my mind won't cooperate no matter how tired my body is. I focus on the feeling of his breathing and the beat of his heart against my back. Who would have thought that this man –if he could be called that, this traitor to the Atmos- would even have a heart? Who would have ever thought that I would be so close as to feel that black heart beat? But then again, I remind myself that he is only human as am I.

It's strange to think of him like that. In war, you can't think of your enemy as a creature of your level. You demonize him, make him something sub-human. That way, you can kill it in battle because it is not of the same blood as you; or so you make yourself think. Lying next to him like this, my views on him shift. Here in the dark, the visage of the monster I've always seen fades to be replaced with this man of burdens. I try to stop these thoughts. We made this arrangement purely for physical gratification. War doesn't leave time enough to form love so we only have the next best thing; this. Emotions can't get in the way.

I try to sleep again but only manage some sort of facsimile of being awake with my eyes closed. The morning rays push through the dusty curtains and I use this as an excuse to get up. The Dark Ace props himself up on his elbows to look at me as I stand to retrieve my clothing from the night before. I ignore him. I have nothing to say to him nor do I owe him anything and I try to impose the images of a devil back onto him. I catch myself looking at him nonetheless, studying him. His shoulders, shoulders that seemed so broad with the pride that he usually carries himself with, seem smaller now. I can almost see his burdens regain their grip on him with every snap of armor as he dresses himself.

He must have felt me staring for he glances up at me, something in his eyes. Those red eyes seem so much deeper than the eyes of a demon who wears a man's skin. There is longing in those eyes but not the same kind of need as the night presented to me with his feverish touches and lust-glazed expression. Something in me, in the most private part of my heart, twinges with some sort of mirrored yearning though I can't quite explain it.

Feeling uncomfortable, I mutter a hasty farewell and leave, feeling his eyes on my back as I walk away. I remind myself that those eyes are not of another human's but of a Cyclonian, a demon-man. The battered wings of my heart will not bear the weight of another and again I admonish myself. There will be no love between myself and that man. There can't be…can there?


End file.
